Rebuilt radiator

[Chuck 98 RT/10]

The original lasted 120,000 miles. I wonder if it would have lasted longer if I would have replaced the fluid more often and gotten one of those special ion caps, but no matter. Anyway, I rebuilt the stocker keeping the 16 fins per inch but adding a third core. It's a little heavy but I'm willing to sacrifice the weight to see if it functions better. This will be replacing my tracker's aluminum radiator that never overly impressed me.

Cost was just under $500 with a local shop that has been around for 30 years. I was happy with the service. http://guaranteedradiators.com/

 

[dave6666]

Looks exactly like what I did. Same price etc. But just like all of the aluminum radiators I've tried, after a few months it developed a small leak top corner of the tube sheet. The guy fixed it for me but meanwhile I had put the repaired aluminum 3-pass back in that the repair on it quickly failed. I've got an Alan's coming now, but I think I'm going to put the copper one back in to see how it performs with my triple cooling fans. I think the conclusion of the 3 fan installation and the removal of the 3-core copper happened at the same time, so time to marry those two together for some testing. Well, except we're down in the mid 90's here in Texas now. As we say, Winter weather LOL.

 

[plumcrazy]

curious to hear what you think of it chuck. keep us posted

 

[Chuck 98 RT/10]

Will do Plum. I probably won't be getting back on the track until next year but I'll let you know.

 

[BOTTLEFED]

I just took mine in to see about this as well.
I decided on just a cleaning/backflush for $30.
The rad shop had never done this before but said it should be no problem. The only problem I had was that it would take him a few weeks to have the 3core custom made and I wasn't willing to wait that long. He quoted me about $450 for it.

I'm curious to see how much improvement could be seen from this, especially on a FI car.

 

[dave6666]

My initial experience with my 3-core copper radiator was a slight improvement over any others I've used. Which is becoming quite a list LOL. Anyway, whereas many use the track as their main proving grounds - lots of air flow - I put most of my miles driving the streets of Texas - sometimes little air flow. I've come to the conclusion that although having a big radiator is good, that without having additional air moving through it the benefit is like I said, slight.

Gotta point out though that a good deal of my testing has been from brand new radiator to brand new radiator. Point is, if you have a cooling problem using the factory radiator, which is probably plugged to some degree, ANY new radiator will provide results. My point of reference for the factory radiator likely being plugged is off my car, OE had less than 40K miles and was at least 50% plugged.

I've got plenty of data from my triple fan install thread on the temps it was running using an aluminum 3-pass. When I get the copper 3-core back in I'll be able to do side by side data comparison. See what I think compared to what Chuck thinks.

 

[AZTVR]

I just took mine in to see about this as well.
I decided on just a cleaning/backflush for $30.
I'm curious to see how much improvement could be seen from this, especially on a FI car.

Point is, if you have a cooling problem using the factory radiator, which is probably plugged to some degree, ANY new radiator will provide results. My point of reference for the factory radiator likely being plugged is off my car, OE had less than 40K miles and was at least 50% plugged.

Local car guys told me just to flush the radiator; but, I decided to have it rodded out. The shop guy reported afterward that its flow rate had been blocked 50%. That was an OEM 45k mile 2002 radiator with one coolant change from green to orange when I bought it in 2006 with 24kmiles and another in 2009. I'd guess it probably didn't have a change before 2006.

I would recommend getting it rodded out if you haven't been using the Dex-Cool type fluid all along.

 

[BOTTLEFED]

The shop I took my rad to said a rodding was not necessary in a rad in good condition and fairly new. He said rodding is only to clean out old scaling and collapsed tubes. He prefers not to rod out the tubes because it has the chance to puncture them during the process. He said the backflush cleaning was good enough for the normal gunk and buildup in the rad.